The seaside turns canvas

Monica Arora

As a hub for creative and artistic activities, be it the International Film Festival of India held in November every year to hosting Serendipity Art Festival for two years in succession, in the month of December, since 2017, the tiny state of Goa is not just attracting tourists for its scenic beauty and pristine environs but has also emerged as a hotspot for art aficionados and young artists.

Among the many venues is Sunaparanta — Goa Centre for the Arts. Golden sunsets, breezy ambience and the susegad way of life get amply reflected in its pristine environs. A non-profit, education-based arts initiative by Dipti and Dattaraj V. Salgaocar, it is situated amidst the picturesque Altinho hills of Panjim. The Centre has an artistically designed café in the central courtyard and overlooks several exhibition galleries, a large space for workshops and lectures, studios, residency rooms for visiting scholars, artists and faculty, a majestic open-air amphitheatre, all amidst the swaying coconut trees and verdant flora and fauna that Goa is known for. The gallery also hosts Sensorium for three months every year where active participation from leading artists from India and abroad is witnessed. It is a culmination of events created around visual arts, cinema and music and is a virtual celebration of this creative juxtaposition.

Cultural melange

Bringing world-class musicians to the city are Rudolf Ludwig and his Goan wife Yulanda Kammermein, who run the Art Chamber in Goa. Elsewhere, there is the One School for photography, which was set up by Bollywood and advertising guru Shantanu Sheorey a few years ago when he relocated to Goa with his wife, erstwhile Bollywood actress Kimi Katkar, with their son from Pune. With labs boasting of the latest equipment, this institute conducts a three-year degree course and has also hosted the Goa International Photography Festival. Interestingly, the tourism department chose 41 frames shot by its students to be displayed at Dabolim airport.

A potpourri of live art, installations, videos, sculpture, theatre and painting is Heritage Studio. It is an artist-in-residence facility created by Nikhil Chopra, a performance artist. The premises facilitates the coming together of painters, authors, musicians, sculptors and theatre artists.  Likewise, there is Gallery Gitanjali that has been associated with the Goa Photography Exhibition, whilst the bustling Kala Academy routinely conducts performance acts by artistes from various corners of the globe.

More in store

The third edition of Sensorium 2018, which concluded recently, was centred around the premise ‘The end is only the beginning’, conceived by the Sensorium’s co-founder and author Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi. It boasted of 28 prolific artists from different corners of the globe. The list of artists and galleries that came together under the eight galleries at Sunaparanta was awe-inspiring and reflected how arts can thrive and blossom given the right impetus and momentum. 

Vincent van Gogh remarked, “... and then, I have nature and art and poetry, and if that is not enough, what is enough?” In Goa, there is all this and perhaps a little more....